Chapter 15

For a week Knightley basked in the restoration of comfortable circumstances: Elton undeceived and gone, Emma undeceived and chastened, and John back in London where he could not tease except by letter. The daily visits to Hartfield were once again pleasant and comfortable, even if Harriet was very much there. Indeed, her presence at Hartfield was evidence that Emma was endeavouring to make amends with her friend by showing her great attention. The long-neglected On the Improvement of the Mind was taken out again, and the bookmark moved a little forward as a result.

“I do not think, Mr. Knightley, that Mr. Elton was very wise in going to Bath at this time of year, or so suddenly,” said Mr. Woodhouse one day when Harriet was not at Hartfield and Knightley had been persuaded to take tea with them in her absence. “He may very well catch a chill during this cold weather. And going about among strangers he may be exposed to infection. The whole excursion is most imprudent.”

Knightley agreed politely, just as he had on each of the other seventeen occasions that Mr. Woodhouse had expressed these thoughts in the last few days. He looked over at Emma, who was quietly smiling over her embroidery. She radiated the natural grace that was indicative of the poise she seemed to have in any situation. Indeed, considering the ordeal she had recently experienced, her behaviour was the model of dignity when contrasted with Elton’s. Emma had responded very well to the humiliating affair. She had swallowed her dose of mortification, learnt from her mistake, and begun to atone for her misguided actions. Elton, on the other hand, had merely become embarrassed and angry and then run away.

 “Oh! Mrs. Weston was here this morning, Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, turning the subject firmly away from Elton. “She left her compliments for you.”

“Thank you. And how do the Westons do?”

“As well as might be expected, considering their disappointment.”

“Disappointment?”

“Oh, have you not heard? Mr. Frank Churchill will not be coming next week after all; his aunt and uncle cannot spare him.”

“Indeed?” said Knightley, with a dim sense that he ought to be sad on behalf of the Westons but not really feeling unhappy at all.

“Yes, and it is too provoking!” said Emma warmly. “Here we have for all these months been anticipating an addition to our confined society—someone new to look at instead of the same dull procession of faces—and now we must wait some more. It would have been as good as a holiday to Highbury to have a new young man about. I am quite out of patience with the Churchills—they could let him come if they would, I am sure.”

Emma’s outburst gave Knightley pause. She had appeared fascinated by this subject once before, at the Westons’ dinner, though at the time he had put it down to simple politeness. Whatever the Westons might imagine with regard to Frank Churchill and Emma, he had been sure that Emma was in no danger of being captivated by such a trivial, frivolous young man. For all that she had been mistaken in Elton’s nature, she generally recognized an honourable character; and she, more than most people, took a firm view of what was due to a father. She could not possibly be captivated by the mere thought of a man like Frank Churchill. But this enthusiasm for the topic when there was no one else to hear her (for even Mr. Woodhouse had begun to nod) denoted some genuine interest. Perhaps in her desire for something new she had forgotten this imperfection of  Mr. Churchill’s. As her plans for Elton to wed Harriet had come to nothing, she must feel that life was very dull and be eager for any novelty. It was but a temporary lapse, of course. When reminded of what she knew already, her interest in Frank Churchill would disappear.

“The Churchills are very likely in fault, but I dare say he might come if he would,” said Knightley.

“I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come; but his uncle and aunt will not spare him.”

“I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a point of it. It is too unlikely for me to believe it without proof.”

“How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done to make you suppose him such an unnatural creature?”

And so Knightley explained why Mr. Frank Churchill could not possibly be blameless in staying away from Randalls, and why he gave every indication of being proud, luxurious and selfish. It was not long before the conversation began to have a familiar feel to it; once again he was asserting things that were clear as day, and Emma was wilfully closing her eyes to those facts. Back and forth they went, Knightley giving sound reasons for his opinions, and Emma stubbornly arguing with every one of them. She made excuse after excuse for Churchill’s negligence, and it was the more aggravating because he would have thought she was the last person to make light of such errors.

“We shall never agree about him,” said Emma after ten minutes of combat, “but that is nothing extraordinary.”

Nothing extraordinary at all, thought Knightley. I have only to open my mouth to be sure that you will contradict whatever I say.

“I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man,” she went on. “I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly, though in his own son. But he is very likely to have a more yielding, complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man's perfection. I dare say he has; and though it may cut him off from some advantages, it will secure him many others.”

The image Emma’s words conjured up—that of a simpering, weak-minded fop—was so very much at odds with his notion of man’s perfection that he responded with more acerbity than he was wont.

“Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of preserving peace at home and preventing his father's having any right to complain. His letters disgust me.”

He could see from Emma’s face that she was a little taken aback by his harsh words. He did not repent them, however. She had been wrong before and suffered humiliation; if he could keep her from doing the same again, he would.

“Your feelings are singular,” said Emma, recovering. “They seem to satisfy every body else.”

“I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston,” said Knightley, hoping that the mention of her dear friend would aid him in bringing Emma to reason. “They hardly can satisfy a woman of her good sense and quick feelings, standing in a mother's place, but without a mother's affection to blind her. It is on her account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he would have come, I dare say, and it would not have signified whether he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He may be very ‘amiable,’ have very good manners, and be very agreeable, but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people—nothing really amiable about him.”

 “You seem determined to think ill of him,” said Emma, reverting, as usual, to a change of subject when she could not refute his point.

“Me! Not at all. I do not want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal—that he is well grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners.”

“Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him,” said Emma, smiling, “he will be a treasure at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a sensation his coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the parishes of Donwell and Highbury; but one interest—one object of curiosity; it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill. We shall think and speak of nobody else.”

The idea of, say, Mrs. Hodges thinking and speaking of nothing but Frank Churchill as she went about her duties made him smile in spite of his vexation. Such an exaggeration tempted him to retort in kind, but he stopped himself. It was better to be the voice of reason in this dispute.

“You will excuse my being so much overpowered,” he said. “If I find him conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance; but if he is only a chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts.”

“My idea of him,” said Emma, ignoring this bit of good sense, “is that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of everybody, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming; to me, of drawing or music; and so on to every body, having that general information on all subjects which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each. That is my idea of him.”

Good heavens! thought Knightley. She was absolutely determined to admire this fellow. Without ever having laid eyes on him she had decided his personality, his talents and his manners!  Her idea of him, indeed!

“And mine,” he said in a tone that sounded less reasonable than he liked, “is that if he turn out any thing like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What! At three-and-twenty to be the king of his company—the great man—the practised politician, who is to read every body's character, and make every body's talents conduce to the display of his own superiority! To be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not endure such a puppy when it came to the point.”

“I will say no more about him. You turn every thing to evil,” said Emma, picking up the embroidery that she had laid aside when the argument began. “We are both prejudiced: you against, I for him. And we have no chance of agreeing till he is really here.”

“Prejudiced!” Of all the ridiculous accusations!  “I am not prejudiced.”

“But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour.”

Prejudiced! thought Knightley, still fuming at the word. She imagines that I spend all my time thinking up malicious slanders against the man!

“He is a person I never think of from one month's end to another,” he said, irritated beyond caring what his tone conveyed.

Emma looked at him for a moment in surprise and then turned her attention to her needle. “Well then, let us talk of something else. Has William Larkins returned to Donwell since his Christmas visit?”

Knightley took a deep breath and willed himself to put aside his annoyance and answer in a rational matter.

“Yes, he has. He came back from his sister’s house with such evident relief that he was almost cheerful. I am to meet with him this afternoon—in an hour, to be exact—to discuss the winter planting of vegetables in the hot-beds at the Abbey.”

“And your new tenants have come?”

“Yes. The farmer presented himself at the Abbey yesterday. He seems a decent fellow—earnest and dedicated. Not much of a sense of humour, though, from what I could see.”

“Rather like William Larkins himself, then.”

“I suppose so, except that he is twenty years younger, and I doubt that he is quite as full of amusing information ”

*   *    *    *

William Larkins came to the Abbey and left again an hour later, having received his instructions about what should be sown in the hot-beds and having imparted the news (“I think you should know, Mr. Knightley…”) that Robert Martin’s best ram was injured and not likely to live, that the maid at Starling Farm was engaged to a labourer from Langham, and that the little boy living with his widowed mother at the Foote farm was blind.

It was this last bit of information that Knightley sat musing on as he was once again alone in his library with Madam Duvall purring contentedly on his lap. He remembered once, years ago, when there had been a child in Highbury that was subject to fits, and the family had been almost shunned by the parish in consequence. But the child had died and the family moved away and no one seemed to remember it anymore. He hoped Donwell would not be too disturbed by the presence of this sightless child in their midst. It took so little to unsettle people. Look what the thought of Frank Churchill’s advent was doing to even such a generally steady female as Emma. She was more than steady; she was clever—the cleverest woman he knew, in fact—and she had firm principles and a good heart. And with those characteristics, her view of the young man was completely unaccountable. No one could doubt Emma’s devotion to her own father; she showed him unceasing kindness and consideration, even though he could be a very tedious companion. How then could she treat so lightly Churchill’s indifference to Weston, a man who was by no means a tedious companion, and who, if not due a visit before now, was certainly owed one on the occasion of his marriage? Knightley could not understand it.

She could not possibly share the unspoken sentiments of the Westons and wish to marry the man. Could she? His brow furrowed as he considered the idea. Suppose Churchill was both good looking and a smooth talker? With her scant knowledge of the world she just might be taken in. In his mind’s eye he could see a dandified fop (ludicrously dressed in the fashion of twenty years ago) prancing up to Emma and uttering flattering nonsense, and Emma (no doubt taken in by the show of worldly sophistication) smiling graciously and allowing his attentions. No, no, that would never be. The prancing alone would make her laugh. Ah, but what if he walked without prancing—say he had an ordinary, manly gait. The apparition in his mind changed accordingly to one which strode purposefully up to Emma and said his piece with insinuating cleverness (still, however, dressed like a macaroni). Emma might be in some danger from a fellow like that.

The cat suddenly leapt off his lap and huddled under the chair as Baxter came into the library and said, “Mr. Spencer to see you, sir. Are you at leisure?”

“By all means, Baxter, send him in. How do you do, Spencer? Come and sit near the fire. The snow is gone, but the wind is still biting; I know, for I was out in it today.”

“Thank you, Mr. Knightley. Yes, perhaps I will take a little something to drive away the chill. Thank you.”

Spencer took the glass that was offered him and sat down in the chair that Knightley indicated. “I suppose you haven’t heard the latest gossip around Donwell.”

“If it concerns anyone connected with Randalls then I am already well-informed.”

“The Westons? No, it has nothing to do with them. No, it is concerning Mrs. Catherwood.”

“Mrs. Catherwood,” repeated Knightley, searching his memory for anyone by that name.

“She is the widowed sister of Edward Foote, your new tenant,” supplied Spencer.

“Ah, yes. I had not heard her name before.”

“I passed Mrs. Catherwood and her son on the road today and stopped to say a few words of greeting to them. I went down on one knee to talk to the little boy, as one does with children, you know, and I put out my hand for him to shake, and he ignored it. I noticed then that he was looking toward me, but not at me.”

“He is blind,” said Knightley.

“You know, then?”

“William Larkins told me a half-hour ago.”

“Yes, of course,” said Spencer with a half-smile. “I saw him coming away from the Abbey—I ought to have guessed that he would have told you.”

“I am quite sure the whole parish is aware of the fact by this time. I hope there will not be any trouble about it.”

“Trouble?”

“You know the superstitious ideas that fester in the country. Some people think that any malady is a visitation of judgement on the sufferer. I only hope that Mrs. Catherwood may not suffer any harassment from pious simpletons. ”

Spencer looked startled. “I confess I had not thought of that. I was only struck by the difficulty of Mrs. Catherwood’s situation—to bring up a fatherless boy is a difficult thing for any woman, but when the boy is blind as well! His prospects must be very bleak.”

“Yes, they must. You shame me, Spencer. I was so mindful of my own affairs that I gave the situation no more thought than to hope it would not cause uneasiness in the parish.”

“Could it really upset the populace to any extent?”

“I think it could. If folk really think that the boy or his mother have done something so wicked that they merit divine retribution…”

“But that is absurd! Of all the mystical nonsense—  Pious simpletons, you called them? Simpletons, yes, but pious…..Humph! If they were truly devout they would remember ‘neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents’—that was about the man born blind, remember. I wish someone might broach the subject with me. I’d give them a lecture they’d not soon forget!”

Knightley had never seen Spencer speak so forcefully. He’d not imagined that the curate could ever be angry; it seemed too far outside his nature. But there were depths in him, evidently, that had been hidden heretofore.

“Well,” said Knightley, “A sermon or two on the topic may go a long way in influencing the general opinion. If you preached with that look on your face, you may be sure the parish would take notice!”

“Whether they take notice or not, they shall certainly hear the truth on this matter. And surely if you undertook to speak to any disruptive troublemakers, your arguments on the subject would convince them of their error. No one would consider disputing your judgement.”

Knightley gave a short laugh. “My judgement is not so universally esteemed as you think. I was told very lately, after a debate that lasted twenty minutes, that I am quite prejudiced and no judge of anyone else’s situation. So you see, I have little faith in my persuasive powers.”

Spencer sat up straight in his chair. “Who on earth had the effrontery to say such a thing to you?”

“Oh, a lady of my acquaintance—a connection of my family’s.”

“What an extraordinary thing to say to a gentleman.”

“Well, she was provoked, and, I think, rather attached to the subject of our debate.”

“I see. Something to do with tender feelings?”

“I hope it has not gone quite as far as that. But I fear she is in some danger of being captivated by a silly, worthless young man.”

“Oh, that sort. Good looking, too, I suppose.”

“Well, he has that reputation, but as our description of him rests solely on the authority of his relatives, we cannot be certain.”

“Have you not met the young man in question, then?”

“Well, no. But one can make a fair estimation of his character from the fragments of news that one hears of him—forever at some watering place or dancing attendance on rich relatives—and from his lack of attention to his real duties.”

“Perhaps he is not so bad as you think him. Charity ‘hopeth all things,’ you know. One may get hold of quite a false notion about a person, and then everything one hears about him only serves to make the impression stronger. But with a further knowledge of his circumstances some of his behaviour may be defended.”

“You take the young lady’s side, I see.”

“I did not mean to. But I have suffered before now under the preconceived ideas of others, and it pains me to see the same injustice being done to another. Perhaps the lady can distinguish in him something good that you cannot perceive, but which will become clear if you meet him yourself.”

Knightley snorted. “She has not met him, either! Which is why her seeming attachment to him is so strange.”

“Well, women have been known to fall in love with men by reputation alone. Izaak Walton, you know, wrote that George Herbert’s wife fell in love with him before she even seen him; her father’s description of the man was enough for her. And by all accounts they had a happy marriage.”

Knightley found very little comfort in this anecdote.

“At any rate,” Spencer went on, “I do think you ought to reserve judgement until the man actually appears. You may be surprised to find him, if not perfect, at least estimable. Then you could be easy whether the lady was in love with him or not.”

“That would be worse,” said Knightley, frowning. “Then there would be nothing to stop her marrying him.”

Spencer had been on the point of taking a sip of his drink, but at Knightley’s words he lowered the glass and stared at him in surprise. “Then—” he stopped abruptly.

“Yes?”

Spencer shook his head. “Never mind. I had almost forgotten what I came to see you about, and I ought to ask you now before it slips my mind again. Can anything be done for the little Catherwood boy?”

“About his eyesight? I doubt it, but you might ask a medical man what his opinion is.”

“No, I meant is there anything we might do for the boy’s prospects? Some sort of trade or craft that he might be taught so that he can support himself when he is grown?”

“Oh! Well, he might do something in the literary way, I suppose, following in the footsteps of Homer and Milton.”

“That is possible, of course, if he is gifted with words. But if he is not?”

“A musician? That has been the traditional trade of many blind people.”

“That is a good thought. Perhaps when he is a little older I will see what can be done about finding a master to teach him.” He put the glass on the small table beside him and stood up.

“Thank you, Mr. Knightley, for your counsel and your hospitality.”

“Not at all. I enjoy our discussions; they always reveal some new aspect of your character.”

“I might say the same thing to you,” said Spencer with a smile that seemed too knowing for such an unworldly curate. “Good day.” He bowed and quit the room, leaving Knightley to puzzle out what he meant.